The deal to grant Fanshawe College city money to buy the Kingsmill's property in downtown London has come up once again on the election trail.

Mayoral candidate Joe Swan says he's uncovered information that shows taxpayers could be on the hook for a lot more than the original $9 million.

Some say Swan is wrong on this one, but he insists that during the council debate over this highly controversial deal - no one mentioned the fact that taxpayers will have to make up the $1.3 million in development charges the college is exempt from.

And he says there should have been full disclosure, "This deal has been rushed, there's been a lack of accountability, a lack of transparency of the total cost to the taxpayer."

Because Fanshawe is an institution developing downtown, it benefits from special incentives on development charges and automatically gets out of paying $1.3 million according to city finance staff.

But Swan says those development charges still have to be covered by taxpayers.

"There's probably some gamesmanship here. They know this is a hot button in the election. I think they're waiting until after Oct. 27 because the full costs to the taxpayer are not yet fully known."

The new information raises the question of whether councillors knew exactly what they were voting for - including all of the costs when council approved the city's contribution.

Councillor Denise Brown, who is also seeking re-election, cast the deciding vote to grant Fanshawe $9 million for the project.

"If it wasn't on the table anybody could have asked the question. We had dealt with a similar issue with a commercial developer."

Councillor Harold Usher, also up for re-election, says the college has every right to benefit from incentives.

"It's there and they're taking advantage of it just like any other builder.Those things were put in there for specific reasons. To provide incentives for people to build in the downtown."

Meanwhile a spokesperson for Fanshawe says the school has been completely transparent, and that it's misleading to say taxpayers are on the hook for development charges.

In a written statement college officials said “Fanshawe has no intention to come back to Council with a further request for funding for this project.”

Meanwhile mayoral candidate Arnon Kaplansky issued a news release Friday stating that he has hired a lawyer to challenge the sale of Kingsmill's to Fanshawe.

He also intends to appear at a city hall committee on Nov. 4 to argue that the sale price of the building far exceeded its assessed value for property tax purposes.